G. San Pietro De Negri: Amorosa Fenice – Faenza / Horvat

   in Early Music Today (Mar, 2015)
Giulio San Pietro de’ Negri seems to have spent the first quarter of the 17th century travelling fairly far and wide, to judge from the title-page dedications to far-flung Italian patricians and noblemen fronting his volumes. These volumes include two books entitled Grazie ed Affetti (comprising monodic writing as well as strophic multi-part items) and one (incomplete) Canti Accademici as well as collections of canzonette. Beyond that, we don’t know a great deal about him, and this disc is the fruit of Marco Horvat’s enthusiastic labours in Negri’s cause. What’s here is well worth discovering.

It’s hard not to think of Monteverdi while listening; Negri was evidently steeped in a …